New York, NY (PRWEB) February 24, 2015 – Today Pearson announced that the State of Tennessee issued shared staging credentials for PowerSchool to implement the new Ed-Fi Alliance state reporting model. The Tennessee Department of Education is implementing the model as part of the Ed-Fi initiative to enable educators to have easy access to comprehensive student-level data that allows them to continually measure progress and develop action plans. The Ed-Fi Data Standard serves as the foundation for enabling interoperability among secure education data systems designed to improve student achievement and teacher satisfaction.

PowerSchool, used by more than 13 million students in more than 50 states and provinces, and 70 countries, plays a central role in a network of integrated systems designed to provide K-12 districts with a cohesive solution to manage all mission-critical administrative processes and instructional data.

Ed-Fi is a universal educational data standard that enables vital academic information on K12 students to be consolidated from the different data systems of school districts throughout the United States. Ed-Fi acts as a universal translator of academic data, integrating and organizing information so that educators can start addressing the individual needs of each student from day one, and can measure progress and refine action plans throughout the school year.

In January 2015, PowerSchool successfully completed validation testing with Tennessee’s implementer, Double Line Partners (DLP). The state has issued shared staging credentials for PowerSchool to begin testing with the first early adopter Local Education Agency (LEA) in the state’s staging environment. The credentials ensure that PowerSchool has met the standards for secure data exchange and appropriate use of student information.

Michael Connolly, vice president of regulatory compliance for Pearson School Systems, said, “Pearson is excited to participate and support this important effort to deliver better, more secure data to local education agencies. Not only will the Ed-Fi initiative result in real-time feedback to directly inform education decisions at the local level, it will also reduce administrative costs incurred by school agencies in their regular reporting of data to the state.”

Once the initial staging environment test survey data is gathered and confirmed, with both the state and the first early adopter LEA, Pearson will implement additional early adopter LEAs to ensure the software is functioning as expected before being made generally available to all LEAs. Training and support is provided by Pearson, so that all Tennessee LEAs are prepared to ”go live” in production in July 2015.

Bryan MacDonald, managing director, Pearson School Systems, said, “This certification of our PowerSchool student information system on Tennessee’s new Ed-Fi model is a significant milestone for Pearson. It represents our continued commitment to partnering with state and local education agencies to develop enhanced ways to manage data and accelerate student achievement through informed decision-making.”

PowerSchool has long been recognized for its secure, reliable management of student data and ease-of-use for teachers, parents and students. Significant investment in PowerSchool and a commitment to developing cutting-edge technologies such as Ed-Fi and Application Programming Interface (API) tools make PowerSchool the leading student information system for K12 education. This first phase of validation testing for Ed-Fi in Tennessee is another step in the continuing process of embracing innovation in technology to benefit student outcomes.

About Pearson Pearson is the world’s leading learning company, with 40,000 employees in more than 80 countries working to help people of all ages to make measurable progress in their lives through learning. For more information about Pearson, visit http://www.pearson.com.